Until the GOP took over the House of Representatives in 2011, raising the U.S. debt ceiling was a routine, uncontroversial legislative activity. Almost always supported by the party in power in the House and Senate, increases in Uncle Sam's borrowing authority were usually linked to new major new spending laws. Otherwise, Congress would send the […]

Along with his fellow GOP Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Richard Burr (R-NC), Utah's Orrin Hatch this week unveiled a new Republican plan to replace Obamacare. Due to its lack of a health insurance mandate, less generous tax credits to purchase coverage and stricter eligibility for Medicaid, the Hatch plan yet to be scored by […]

This week, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew warned Congressional leaders that the federal government will hit its debt ceiling in late February. But just days after House Speaker John Boehner declared Uncle Sam "shouldn't even get close" to the edge of its borrowing limit, his spokesman Michael Steel warned a "'clean' debt-limit increase simply won't pass […]

During the 2012 presidential campaign, GOP nominee Mitt Romney declared that discussion of the nation's record-high income inequality should be left to "quiet rooms." As their casual comparisons of modest tax increases to the Holocaust show, conservatives would do well to heed his advice. After all, before Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tom Perkins warned that […]

This was not the best of weeks for once and possible future GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. First, the Fox News host doubled-down on his "Uncle Sugar" charge that the Affordable Care Act's conception coverage mandate showed that Democrats believe women "cannot control their libido or reproductive system without the help of the government," only […]

A federal judge in Kansas City issued a preliminary injunction on Thursday blocking Missouri's draconian restrictions on Obamacare "navigators." Following a similar decision which ruled that Republican legislation in Tennessee was far too broad, Judge Ortrie B. Smith declared that "that the State of Missouri was illegally obstructing the activities of insurance counselors appointed by […]

Republicans need to make up their minds. They simultaneously claim that Obamacare will "destroy the private-insurance market" and will give insurers a massive "bailout" at taxpayer expense. Both statements can't be true. (Judging the recent statements of the insurers' CEO's--and their skyrocketing stocks prices-- it is increasingly clear that neither is true.) Nevertheless, GOP leaders […]

The sun still rises in the east and the force of gravity still applies. And when they want to sound tough on Iran, would-be Republican presidential candidates still cite Ronald Reagan as their role model. So following in the footsteps of Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney, Texas Senator Ted Cruz tweeted a picture of Ronald […]

The first numbers on the body count from the Republican sabotage of the Affordable Care Act are just now coming in. Last week, an analysis from Harvard's Theda Skocpol revealed that states that both set up their own health care exchanges and embraced the ACA's expansion of Medicaid are racing toward their enrollment goals, while […]

With the premiere of the documentary Mitt this week, the Mitt Romney rehabilitation project will be projected on screens around America. But the conservative effort to reinvent the flip-flopping, formerly pro-choice, health care reforming Massachusetts vulture capitalist as a paragon of faith, fatherhood and family values is doomed to failure. Not because Willard Mitt Romney […]